Landschap met beek en op de achtergrond een man en een stier 1787

Friedrich Rauscher created this landscape with a brook, man and bull in 1797 using etching. Here we see Rauscher working within a pictorial tradition of the late 18th century, in which the wildness of nature is contrasted with the smallness of man. The etching was made in the Dutch Republic, a place where land was harnessed, drained and cultivated, but it depicts a scene far from this reality. In fact, it is a complete fiction. We might see this as a comment on the burgeoning art market and the new museums that were being established at this time. Was Rauscher commenting on the public's taste for the picturesque, suggesting an appetite for an imagined reality, not the world as it really was? These are the kinds of questions that art historians ask when trying to understand art as something more than just aesthetics. By using inventories, letters, and sales records, we try to establish the context and so reveal the meaning of works like this.